Surat: The food and safety department officials of the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) on Monday raided factories selling packaged drinking water in the city and slapped closure notices on eight of them.Those given immediate closure notice include Him Water Beverages, Healthy Water, Visat Beverages, Citizen Water, Raja Water, Radhika Beverages, Neer Water and Sunrise Beverages. The notices were slapped for not possessing the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and food safety certificates.A few days ago, 22 such plants were given closure notices by SMC. These steps are taken following complaints of consumption of contaminated water leading to number of water-borne diseases.According to an official from food and safety department of SMC, there are nearly 60-65 such small plants operating in the city.“Till now they used to sell water pouches in huge quantity. However, with the ban on selling water in plastic water pouches, majority of them are selling 20 litre packaged water, which they call mineral water. Nearly 40 of them possess official license to sell. Others have been closed now,” a food inspector of SMC said.Each of these plants sell at least 5,000 litres of such packaged water and SMC does check their quality in periodic manner.

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